Rathwa
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The Rathva or Rathwa (also spelled as Rathava and Rathawa) is a
Subcaste A caste is a fixed social group into which an individual is born within a particular system of social stratification: a caste system. Within such a system, individuals are expected to marry exclusively within the same caste (endogamy), foll ...
of the
Koli Koli may refer to: People * Koli people, Indian caste group * Koli Christians, a Christian subgroup * Muslim Kolis, Muslim community * Koli (surname), Indian surname * Koli Sewabu (born 1975), Fijian rugby union footballer Places * Koli, Fin ...
caste A caste is a Essentialism, fixed social group into which an individual is born within a particular system of social stratification: a caste system. Within such a system, individuals are expected to marry exclusively within the same caste (en ...
found in the
Indian state India is a federal union comprising 28 states and 8 union territories, for a total of 36 subnational entities. The states and union territories are further subdivided into 800 districts and smaller administrative divisions by the respe ...
of
Gujarat Gujarat () is a States of India, state along the Western India, western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the Kathiawar peninsula. Gujarat is the List of states and union territories ...
. Rathava Kolis were
agriculturist An agriculturist, agriculturalist, agrologist, or agronomist (abbreviated as agr.) is a professional in the Agricultural science, science, practice, and management of Farming, agriculture and agribusiness. It is a regulated profession in Canada, ...
by profession and turbulent by habits but now lives like
Adivasi The Adivasi (also transliterated as Adibasi) are heterogeneous tribal groups across the Indian subcontinent. The term is a recent invention from the 20th century and is now widely used as a self-designation by groups classified as Scheduled Tr ...
s such as
Bhil Bhil or Bheel refer to the various Indigenous peoples, indigenous groups inhabiting western India, including parts of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh and are also found in distant places such as Bengal and Tripura. Though they now speak the Bhili ...
because of their neighborhood


History

Their communal belief is that they came to the Gujarat area in the
Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...
from what is now known as
Madhya Pradesh Madhya Pradesh (; ; ) is a state in central India. Its capital is Bhopal and the largest city is Indore, Indore. Other major cities includes Gwalior, Jabalpur, and Sagar, Madhya Pradesh, Sagar. Madhya Pradesh is the List of states and union te ...
. According to the
Government of Gujarat The Government of Gujarat, also known as Gujarat Government, is the supreme governing authority of the Indian state of Gujarat and its 33 districts. It consists of an executive of the legislators appointed by the Governor of Gujarat, a judiciar ...
, they are now found in the
talukas A tehsil (, also known as tahsil, taluk, or taluka () is a local unit of administrative division in India and Pakistan. It is a subdistrict of the area within a district including the designated populated place that serves as its administrative ce ...
of
Chhota Udaipur Chhota Udaipur is a City and a Municipality in Chhota Udaipur District of Gujarat in India. It's also a Administrative Headquarter of the district. It's Established on August 15, 2013, by dividing Vadodara district. Geography Chhota Udaipur ...
, Jabugam and
Nasvadi Nasvadi State was a minor princely state during the British Raj in what is today Gujarat State India. It was initially administered by the Rewa Kantha Agency and then by the Baroda and Gujarat States Agency. It was part of the 28 Princely Stat ...
in
Vadodara district Vadodara district, also known as Baroda district, is situated in the eastern part of the state of Gujarat in western India. The administrative headquarters of the district is the city of Vadodara (Baroda). The district covers an area of 7,794&n ...
and the Baria,
Halol Halol is a city and a municipality (tehsil) in Panchmahal district in the Indian state of Gujarat. Located in western India, it has an average elevation of 499 metres (1637 feet). Halol is a major manufacturing hub of Western India, ...
and Kalol talukas of
Panchmahal district Panchmahal, also rendered as Panch Mahal, is a district in the eastern portion of Gujarat State western India. ''Panch-mahal'' means "five tehsils/talukas" (5 sub-divisions), and refers to the five sub-divisions that were transferred by the Mahar ...
. Although sometimes referred to as the Rathwa Koli, and sometimes self-identifying as such, they are treated as inferior by the
Koli people The Koli is an Indian caste that is predominantly found in India, but also in Pakistan and Nepal. Koli is an agriculturist caste of Gujarat but in coastal areas they also work as fishermen along with agriculture. In the beginning of 20th ce ...
. Some sources say that they are in fact descended from migrant
Bhil people Bhil or Bheel refer to the various indigenous groups inhabiting western India, including parts of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh and are also found in distant places such as Bengal and Tripura. Though they now speak the Bhili language, an Indo-A ...
, although Shereen Ratnagar noted that those Rathwa to whom she spoke during her anthropological studies rejected that association and that labels such as ''Koli'' and ''Bhil'' were historically imposed upon communities by administrative outsiders as catch-all terms. Bhils and Kolis historically co-existed in the hills of what is now Gujarat, which sociologist
Arvind Shah Professor Arvind M. Shah (1939-2020) retired from his professorship in the Department of Sociology at the University of Delhi in 1996. He had been a student of M. N. Srinivas in 1952 and became a teacher in sociology at Maharaja Sayajirao Univer ...
says has led to confusion of the two groups, not helped by there being "hardly any modern, systematic, anthropological, sociological or historical study" of the Kolis. The Rathwa themselves were barely studied until a seminal paper produced by R. B. Lal in 1970, in part because they lived as niche communities in steep, densely forested, relatively inaccessible areas.


Gallery

Flute Rathava Community Gujrat.jpg Teer-Kamaan Rathava Community Clothing Gujrat.jpg Beadwork Rathava Community Gujrat (2).jpg Rathava Community Clothing Gujrat (2).jpg Dhak Instrument Rathava Community Gujrat (2).jpg Dhak Instrument Rathava Community Gujrat (1).jpg Rathava Men Women Community Gujrat.jpg


Painting

Pithora Painting1.JPG, Pithora Painting on Canvas Pithora painting3.JPG, Pithora painting


Present circumstances

Rathwa culture is at its most pure in the remote hilly areas of Chhota Udaipur, where most are concentrated, and becomes more diluted elsewhere. They speak the Rathwi language among themselves and mostly the
Gujarati language Gujarati ( ; , ) is an Indo-Aryan language native to the Indian state of Gujarat and spoken predominantly by the Gujarati people. Gujarati is descended from Old Western Rājasthāni, Old Gujarati (). In India, it is one of the 22 Languages with ...
when communicating with outsiders, although
Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...
is also used. Their literacy rates are low, being around 35 per cent at the time of the
2001 Census of India The 2001 census of India was the 14th in a series of censuses held in India every decade since 1871. The population of India was counted as 1,028,737,436 consisting of 532,223,090 males and 496,514,346 females. The total population increased b ...
and under 30 per cent in outlying areas. However, these rates should improve because the community now recognises the need for education and there is an improved school system for their villages. The Rathwas are culturally indistinguishable - even by themselves - from the
Dhanak ''Dhanak'' (; ) is a 2015 Indian Hindi-language children's road film A road movie is a genre of film in which the main characters leave home on a road trip, typically altering the perspective from their everyday lives. Road movies often depi ...
and
Naikda The Naikda ''or'' Nayaka, including choliwala nayaka, kapadia nayaka, mota..are a scheduled tribe found in the state of Gujarat and Rajasthan in India. In Maharashtra the Naikda are also called ''Katkari'', which is derived from the word ''kathori' ...
tribes of the area, having similar dress, similar celebrations of life events such as birth, marriage and death, similar religious beliefs, songs and dance. Like the Dhanka and Naikda, they are
endogamous Endogamy is the cultural practice of marrying within a specific social group, religious denomination, caste, or ethnic group, rejecting any from outside of the group or belief structure as unsuitable for marriage or other close personal relatio ...
and this lack of inter-community marriage is the one thing that clearly separates them from each other. Lal recorded the community as practising a patrilineal system of inheritance and subsisting mainly through agriculture, supplemented by food gathering, fishing and hunting. They have a number of
exogamous Exogamy is the social norm of mating or marrying outside one's social group. The group defines the scope and extent of exogamy, and the rules and enforcement mechanisms that ensure its continuity. One form of exogamy is dual exogamy, in which tw ...
clans, including the Hamania, Thebaria, Mahania, Kothari Baka and Fadia. Lal recorded around 32
sept A sept () is a division of a family, especially of a Scottish or Irish family. The term is used both in Scotland and in Ireland, where it may be translated as Irish , meaning "progeny" or "seed", and may indicate the descendants of a person ...
s. As with other tribes of the region,
ancestor worship The veneration of the dead, including one's ancestors, is based on love and respect for the deceased. In some cultures, it is related to beliefs that the dead have a continued existence, and may possess the ability to influence the fortune of t ...
is common among the Rathwas. They believe in an omnipresent deity called Babo Pithora or Baba Deb, who is depicted with other scenes of everyday life in religious paintings on the walls of their houses. Gregory Alles believes that these artworks are akin to cosmographs. merging aspects of real life with an imaginary world. They appeal to the deity in times of need and create the painting - called a pithora - as a thanks for resolution of those needs. Pithora ritual art, described by Ratnagar as "vibrant colours ... teeming with gods, people, plants, birds and animals", is unique to the Rathwa and significant in its appeal to tourists; aside from practising it in their own houses, the Rathwa also paint pithora in the houses of Dhanak and Naikda people. Horses have a particularly prominent role in worship as Babo Pithora is thought to ride one. Not only do the animals feature in the pithora paintings but clay models of them, sourced from
Kumbhar Kumhar or Kumbhar is a caste or community in India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan. Kumhars have historically been associated with the art of pottery. Etymology The Kumhars derive their name from the Sanskrit word ''Kumbhakar'' meaning eart ...
potters, are also offered in thanks at temples. No member of a family is permitted to sit with their back facing the pithora in the house. Aside from worship of ancestors, nature and tribal deities, Lal noted some aspects of Hinduism integrated into their belief systems; the number professing solely Hindu beliefs has been increasing under the influence of
sampradaya ''Sampradaya'' (/ səmpɾəd̪ɑjə/,; ), in Indian-origin religions, namely Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism, can be translated as 'tradition', 'spiritual lineage', 'sect', or 'religious system'. To ensure continuity and transmissi ...
s. Although Gujarat is a "dry" state, the Rathwas also traditionally consider alcohol to be a gift from god that alleviates temporal sorrows while awaiting death, and will travel to smuggle it from neighbouring states or brew it in their own homes. Government agencies have struggled to define the Rathwa, whom Ratnagar says were not separately recorded from the Kolis until the census of 1971. However, Lal's paper notes population figures from 1961, which was also a census year. The community is classified as a Scheduled Tribe in three states under India's system of positive discrimination, those being Gujarat,
Karnataka Karnataka ( ) is a States and union territories of India, state in the southwestern region of India. It was Unification of Karnataka, formed as Mysore State on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, States Re ...
and
Maharashtra Maharashtra () is a state in the western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. It is bordered by the Arabian Sea to the west, the Indian states of Karnataka and Goa to the south, Telangana to th ...
.


Notable people

*
Amarsinh Rathawa Amarsinh Rathwa (1942–1990) was an Indian politician. He was elected to the Lok Sabha, lower house of the Parliament of India from Chhota Udaipur, Gujarat as a member of the Indian National Congress The Indian National Congress (INC) ...
(1977–1989) Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha *
Mohansinh Chhotubhai Rathava Mohansinh Rathva (born 4 April 1944) is an Indian politician and a Member of the Legislative Assembly of Gujarat from Chhota Udaipur constituency. He has served as an MLA for ten terms. He was a member of Gujarat legislative assembly represe ...
an Indian politician


See also

*
List of Koli people The Koli people are a community native to India. Notable people of the community include: Military Navy * Kanhoji Angre, Admiral of Maratha Navy * Yakut Khan, Admiral of Mughal Navy * Laya Patil, Navy, Naval chief in Maratha (caste), M ...
*
List of Koli states and clans A list is a set of discrete items of information collected and set forth in some format for utility, entertainment, or other purposes. A list may be memorialized in any number of ways, including existing only in the mind of the list-maker, but ...


Associated Groups

* Baria *
Koli Koli may refer to: People * Koli people, Indian caste group * Koli Christians, a Christian subgroup * Muslim Kolis, Muslim community * Koli (surname), Indian surname * Koli Sewabu (born 1975), Fijian rugby union footballer Places * Koli, Fin ...


References

Notes Citations


External links

*
Social Contexts of Tribal Education by Vimal P. Shah and Tara Patel, 1985
{{Social groups of Gujarat Agricultural castes Gujarati people Gujarati-language surnames Indian feudalism Koli people Koli subcastes Koli titles Occupational surnames Social groups of Gujarat Surnames of Indian origin Scheduled Tribes of Gujarat Bhil clans